Discharge summaries riddled with ‘alarming’ abbreviations, study reveals
On average the letters contain 17 abbreviations, most of which mean different things to different doctors, shows Australian research
For any GP who has puzzled over a hospital discharge summary, Aussie findings reveal they contain dozens of abbreviations that can be interpreted in an “alarming” number of ways.
On average, a patient discharge summary has 17 different abbreviations, with one notable example containing 86 short forms, according to Queensland researchers.
Not only were hospital summaries riddled with abbreviations, but they meant different things to the more than 300 doctors in the study.
While most doctors agreed that Hb meant ‘haemoglobin’ and IV meant ‘intravenous’, GPs and junior doctors provided 32 different versions of what the letters LC might mean.
